Honor the gift.

As I am working at finding the next path of my professional life, I find myself asking how I got here and where I might want to be going.In examining this, I have spent some time looking back in time,to try and retrace my steps.One thing has become increasingly clear. I have spent the last 20 years in a field that I resisted going into, in fact swore I never would be part of, and I have put that which I enjoy doing most as secondary.
Growing up the son of a salesman, I swore I would never go into sales. During the time when I was most impressionable,my pre-teen and teenage years, my dad did nothing but struggle to make ends meet.The field he had been so successful in for the early art of his married and adult life, kicked him around for the better part of the two decades of my youth and teenage years.It always seemed 1 step forward and two steps back for him,digging a hole which until the day he died ,he never was able to get out of.
On top of that, I just didn't enjoy selling.I know many salesmen, real professionals, who absolutely love selling. It's in their blood. While I am more than just good at it, I just don't enjoy it. Not the way I see those who are really successful at it enjoy it. They love it. It's like an aphrodisiac to them.For me it was always just a means to some income.It's hard to be passionately connected to something when it's only about the money.
Looking back ,I can't for the life of me figure out why I left logistics and operations.Maybe the provider in me found that sales was the quickest way to creating income. The entrepreneur in me could never be satisfied just selling. I love creating. I love problem solving. I love fixing. I love taking on that which other's shy away from. I love filling holes and finding opportunities.
Like a sculptor who sees a masterpiece in a block of stone, I see opportunities and possibilities that I know that others walk right past or run away from. Operations, logistics, marketing, systems,administration and all of the elements that fall outside of sales fascinates me. Leave financing to the accountants. Leave technology to the I.T. people.Leave sales to sales people. Let me create the platform for all of these things to happen. Then let me take the pieces pull them together and make sure that they get carried across the goal line. I even enjoy hanging around well after every one heads off to the victory celebration to make sure that the floors are swept , the next project is set up, the lights are turned off and the doors are locked and the alarms are set before calling it a day.
Now as I look towards the future, I am uncertain which road to walk down. It's not as if anybody is offering any choice right now.I just know that I am not honoring the part of me that  excites and engages me the most.
Opening the grooming shop has given me a taste of what I find most enjoyable.
And those who have seen it will attest to the fact that creating something from nothing more than an idea, is something I have been gifted with. There just feels like something is wrong when I am not honoring that gift.
Shabbat Shalom!